Tinker AFB Union Workers Protest Against Government Shutdown

Union employees who work at Tinker AFB rallied Monday outside the union office as the fight for their jobs continue.

MIDWEST CITY, Oklahoma -

One week into the government shutdown, and still, no signs of an end to the closure. Union workers for Tinker Air Force Base held their first protest against the government shutdown.

The longer the federal shutdown lasts, the more uncertain federal workers become about their future.

Union employees who work at Tinker AFB rallied Monday outside the union office as the fight for their jobs continue.

"Were going day to day as to whether or not our status is going to change," said Carl Dahms, local Pres., American Federation for Government Employees.

Dahms is a direct maintenance employee at Tinker AFB and has yet to lose any paid work. The funding Carl's position falls under is still in place, but there's uncertainty as to how long it will last if the shutdown continues.

Federal workers are calling it a day to day guessing game.

"Hopefully some of these congressmen in their local offices are seeing this stuff and realizing, because at this point, we don't believe that they realize the impact that this shut down is having on people," said Dahms.

Over the weekend, Republicans and Democrats continued their infinite round of finger-pointing, offering no indication that either party will head into week two of the shutdown with a solution. There's still thousands of furloughed government employees waiting to get back to work.

"The parties, I would argue need to just sit down and talk. Once you start that dialogue then we can find some common ground," said Rep. Tom Cole.

Rep. Cole says Congress simply needs to do its job.

"We're working through it step by step," said Rep. Cole. "We had two big steps with putting all the civilian workers back to work."

"We're out here to encourage people to call their legislators and the President of the United States to get us back to work, that's what's important," said Greg Brooks, Pres. Federal Aviation Administration.

Brooks, also one of the local union presidents, says the main concern is stability within the government.

"We don't want to work off continuing resolutions every 60 days or every 90 days. It's ridiculous," said Brooks.

Saturday, the Pentagon called back to work most of its roughly 400,000 civilian employees.